Kay Edelman says she sometimes finds it hard to exercise as she worries about an Obama loss.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Kay Edelman says she sometimes finds it hard to exercise as she...

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Obama campaign volunteer Kay Edelman switching placement of an Obama poster on her front door in San Francisco, Calif., as she mentions how close the presidential polls are on Thursday, October 25, 2012.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Obama campaign volunteer Kay Edelman switching placement of an...

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Obama campaign volunteer Kay Edelman talking on the phone in her kitchen in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, October 25, 2012.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Obama campaign volunteer Kay Edelman talking on the phone in her...

Image 4 of 4

Obama campaign volunteer Kay Edelman sometimes finds it hard to exercise in San Francisco, Calif., as she worries about presidential polls on Thursday, October 25, 2012.

There's no shortage of their kind in the politically bluest parts of California. Liberals so freaked out about the prospect of President Obama losing his re-election bid that they can't sleep at night. Can't talk about anything else. Can't stop parsing the latest polls.

David Plouffe, one of President Obama's top campaign strategists, has a word for supporters he feels are needlessly fretful: bed wetters.

For the past several weeks, the 60-year-old San Francisco resident has frequently bolted awake in the middle of the night, in "a panic attack," she said. She darts for her computer and checks the latest polls. Some days she's so distraught that she can't exercise.

Every morning, she gets e-mails from friends who've been just as sleepless. Most are so tense, they can croak out only a few words. "Very anxious." "Worried."

"Nothing more needs to be said," said Edelman, a retired educational administrator.

Emotional role reversal

In this most unpredictable of campaigns, an emotional role reversal is happening in California. Republicans, who hold no statewide offices and are only 30 percent of registered voters, are more upbeat and enthusiastic.

Liberals, on the other hand, keep checking the polls.

It's unlikely that even Republican Mitt Romney's immediate family members think he'll win California. But a Public Policy Institute of California survey released last week shows that while Obama holds a 12-point lead among likely California voters, 70 percent of Republican voters in the state were more enthusiastic than usual about voting - a greater proportion than the 61 percent of Democrats who were more enthused.

For liberals, part of the problem is that neither of the presidential campaigns is active in California, conceding the state to Obama. That means liberals have little to do other than reinforce each other's fears about the voting predilections of a voting species seldom seen in the Bay Area - non-Democrats.

"We're seeing these polls and reading about all these ads, and hearing about all of these undecided voters that are in other states, but we feel that we can't do anything about it," said Pat Reilly, a longtime press spokeswoman for national and California organizations and politicians who lives in Berkeley. "You feel like you're part of a fight, but you can't see your opponent."

Like many liberals, Edelman pins the increase in her angst to the first presidential debate, in Denver. That was the performance where Obama joked later that he "felt really well rested after the nice, long nap I had in the first debate."

Uncomfortable 1st debate

Edelman hosted a bunch of friends to watch the debate over dinner. But after the first five minutes unfolded, nobody ate. Few spoke. "And right after it ended, everybody just got up and left," she said.

Berkeley resident Jim Blume yelled at the television while he watched the debate with family and friends.

"C'mon! Say something! That's wrong what he (Romney) is saying," Blume recalls telling the leader of the free world.

Alas, Obama didn't respond to Blume's pleas. And for the next two nights, Blume didn't sleep. A man who has voted for only one Republican in his life - when the Beatles were touring - found himself questioning Obama and the state of the campaign.

"What was happening? Who was this guy?" Blume asked.

Zuzana Ikels knows the pain. Since the first debate, the Albany resident has done a lot of poll checks at 3 a.m. And rechecks.

She tried to convince herself that the first debate wasn't as bad as it looked. Maybe, she said, it was like how you thought you bombed a test but you really didn't do that badly.

Fears grow as polling drops

Then Obama started dropping in the polls.

"Oh my God," Ikels said. "I didn't really start paying serious attention to the race until then. All the Republicans were tearing each other up during the primaries and they were all looking insane, so I thought (Obama) would be all right."

It didn't take the first debate to make Evan Lovett anxious. He's been wired that way since the Al Gore-George W. Bush race in 2000 ended with the Democratic vice president winning the popular vote but losing the election after a Supreme Court decision.

But now his friends are calling him a bed wetter because he constantly checks Twitter for the latest polling news. "Anything anybody sends me that's a poll, I look at it," said Lovett, 34, of Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles County).

Only one person has been able to calm these and many other nervous Democrats: Pollster Nate Silver, creator of the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog. Many anxious liberals check him daily. At least.

Pollster's odds for Obama

Silver, who correctly predicted 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 election, frequently updates the probability of which candidate will win the presidency. As of Friday, Silver predicted that Obama had a 74 percent chance of winning.

"After I read Nate Silver the other day, I felt better," Blume said.

Next week, Blume is going to volunteer and make some calls at Obama headquarters in San Francisco. Edelman began increasing her visits to the San Francisco office.

Reilly, who has organized trips to swing states since 2008, offers another option to bed wetters.

"Get in a car, and get yourself to Reno," she said, referring to the city that is the swingingest part of swing state Nevada. She is organizing a trip there the weekend before the Nov. 6 election to help get out the vote on behalf of a group called Technology for Obama.

"Walk off some of that anxiety," she said, "while you go door to door."